


A Walking Shadow

by ladymacbeth99



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 05:58:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3316769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymacbeth99/pseuds/ladymacbeth99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Loki’s fall from the Bifrost kills him. His spirit returns to haunt Asgard, but Frigga is the only one able to see or hear him.</p><p>Even more unfortunately, Loki has not yet realized that he is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Macbeth: "Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
> 
> As I'm sure you guessed from the summary, there is a major character death, but please keep in mind that he's still *in* the story just the same.

Today is the day.

Frigga has prepared herself for this—expected, half-heartedly, that it might bring her some catharsis—but it is still a struggle to maintain her regal poise as she oversees the servants in the Great Hall, taking down the black silk banners and replacing them with the usual gold. They clear away the lilies and the hyacinths. All the visible trappings of mourning are discarded, for the traditional observance period for a death in the royal family is now over.

Exactly six months ago, Loki fell. Life in Asgard may return to normal, but Frigga cannot. She is stuck, caught in a state between dreaming and waking. Her son—the baby she once cradled and soothed; the toddler whose tears she had kissed away; the clever imp of a child who once sat at her feet learning to weave magic just like her; the reclusive adolescent who still shared private jokes with her; the young man who made her heart swell with pride—is dead.

He is dead—but he is not yet _gone_.

Frigga feels like she is leading two separate lives, or perhaps three. In public, she is serene, collected, showing only a quiet sorrow for her younger son’s death, but still capable of going about her everyday responsibilities—just as a queen should. She still smiles and exchanges pleasantries with the ladies of the court. She still manages the staff and the household finances. She still maintains alliances with foreign royalty, still appears united with her husband in public.

In whatever moments she can steal for herself, however, the cracks in her armor shatter, and she splinters into a thousand pieces.

She is not alone in this, she knows. They all have had to carry on. But the family grieves nonetheless. Odin has become elusive, almost silent. Thor…Her heart aches for Thor, who still seems like a lost child, confused, unable to truly process his loss.

Yet there is something that even Thor and Odin do not know. Loki is dead, but he is _still here_.

The day after the funeral—after setting adrift a ship without a body, just some possessions and a gossamer shroud she wove herself; after Thor set it ablaze with a bolt of lightning—Frigga retreated to her garden to be alone when she first saw him.

It was Loki. Standing in her garden, admiring her lilacs just as he used to. Greeting her and smiling at her as if nothing were the matter. Naturally, that day she feared she had gone mad with grief. Her son was lost forever, he had ended his life and fallen into the bottomless Void, she knew that. It could only be a specious delusion, her subconscious trying to insulate her from the horror of losing her child—or else a phantom sent by the Norns to torment her, a manifestation of her guilt.

But if she were to conjure up an illusion of Loki to comfort herself, it would not be like this. She would want to see him as she remembered him: affectionate, eager to please, with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. She would not choose to see this pale, sad specter her son has become. He is a shadow of the Loki she knew.

Still, she clings to him. She drinks in the sight of him, aches for the sound of his voice, because at any moment he might vanish, and her second chance might be snatched from her. She curses herself for being so selfish. Loki’s spirit should not be lingering here; he is clearly restless, miserable, lonely. That he has found neither Helheim nor Valhalla disturbs her, and yet—her son has found a way home. How can she let him go now?

* * *

Loki does not quite know what is wrong with him. He has been feeling very strange—for how long, he cannot say; he seems to lose track of the time these days—the world around him feels surreal, as if he is walking through a dream. He is inexplicably cold all the time. He seems to be misplacing many of his possessions—many of his favorite books have disappeared from his shelves, and his finest cloak from his wardrobe—and he had torn apart his chambers without any success.

 _Perhaps my mind is unraveling completely_ , he thinks. _This has been happening ever since Thor was banished…or was it when he returned…?_

Whenever he tries to recall those three days of his brother’s exile, it is like snatches of a dream, long ago, like viewing the memories through a long tunnel. This makes him worry all the more for his sanity—had the panic and revulsion of discovering his true parentage caused him to utterly fall apart? He remembers making some rather extreme decisions—fighting with Thor, trying to kill Thor, because he would rather destroy with his own hands the being he loved most than to lose him by not being enough.

If that attitude was not madness, Loki does not know what is.

Last night he had the nightmare again. It is nothing but jumbled images and sensations, but it horrifies him all the same: Thor’s hammer striking the Bifröst and shattering its crystalline surface. The words, “No, Loki.” Falling for an eternity. There are stars everywhere, but it is still so dark and so cold, and no matter how loudly he screams, he cannot hear his own voice.

In the morning, Loki seeks out his brother. Nothing could banish darkness and fear like Thor—his solidness, his surety could always reassure Loki, re-anchor him in reality.

Thor is sitting at the broken edge of the Bifröst. Heimdall stands watch beside him. Neither of them look up at Loki’s approach.

“Thor?”

His brother does not respond to the sound.

“Are you still angry with me, brother?” Loki sighs. “I _am_ sorry, Thor. For everything. For telling you that Father was dead. For sending the Destroyer after you.”

He reaches a hand out to clasp Thor’s shoulder, but his hand is shaking, so he withdraws it. For what seemed like weeks, he had refused to apologize, but eventually Loki’s battered pride broke completely, and now he has lost track of the number of times he has asked for Thor’s forgiveness.

Still, Thor has not said a word to him since they fought. Has not even acknowledged his presence.

“I never thought you had the stamina to keep up this cold shoulder for as long as you have,” Loki snaps, “but this is really becoming childish, Thor.”

No reaction. The unhappy crease between Thor’s eyebrows is still there, but it is as if he has not heard Loki’s words at all. Loki might have been impressed by Thor’s apparent newfound control over his emotions, if he were not so frustrated with him.

“Very well. If you still refuse to speak with me, I will not force my presence on you,” Loki says bitterly, and turns back the way he came.

Loki finds his mother kneeling in her garden, under an apple tree. Though it is a radiant summer day, her gown is long-sleeved, a somber plum velvet, which strikes him as a little odd. She does not seem to hear his approach, for she studies a blossom in her hands as if deep in thought.

As he draws near, he notices with a pang that the queen looks unwell. There are weary circles under her eyes, her clothes seem to hang on her loosely, every inhale seems a struggle to keep her composure. He cannot imagine what causes her distress.

“Mother?” She looks up, startled. But the pain that fills her eyes at the sight of him answers his question: he is in some way responsible, directly or indirectly. It vanishes in an instant, however, and she smiles with convincing cheerfulness. She pats the ground besides her in an invitation to sit, and he obliges.

Though he has not quite forgiven her for lying to him, he has taken to spending even more time with Frigga these days. It seems she is the only person in Asgard who will still acknowledge him.

“Hello, Loki,” she says softly. Her voice is slightly hoarse. He realizes she has been opening and closing the petals of the flower in her hand—a simple spell she used to amuse him with when he was a child.

“Thor still will not speak to me,” he says dully. _I thought he, of all people, would forgive easily_ , he does not say.

Frigga’s eyes are guarded. “Your brother loves you, Loki,” she says carefully. “But he is also very hurt right now. Give him time.”

He reaches for her hand, suddenly desperate for a warm, familiar touch. But she flinches away from him. Crestfallen, he pretends to have been reaching over to pick one of the flowers at their feet instead.

* * *

Today marks six months since Loki died. Thor visits the Bifröst, the nearest thing to a grave that his brother has. He knows his friends would want to support him, and he is grateful for their patience with him these long months, but truthfully, he wishes for quiet. The understanding silence between him and Heimdall leaves Thor all but alone with his thoughts.

Thor seems to recall hearing somewhere—perhaps Loki read it to him long ago from one of his musty old tomes—that people who lose a limb can still feel it attached to their bodies. They reach out, forgetting for a moment that their hand is missing, or the phantom sensation feels so real that they have to keep looking down and checking if the limb is really gone.

Losing his brother has been much the same. A piece of Thor has been cut away, something that had been so omnipresent that is had never even occurred to him that he could _lose_ it. The absence is unnatural.

At least once a week, Thor finds himself halfway to Loki’s chambers before remembering that they will be empty. In the training ring with his friends—he has thrown himself back into his old routine with desperate vigor—he often neglects his right flank and receives a blow to the ribs from Sif, because he forgets that there is no one guarding his back anymore. At dinner, he sometimes turns to share a joke with an empty seat.

Every time he realizes Loki is dead, Thor loses him all over again.

Lately, he has been making a conscious effort to catch himself before his friends or his mother notice his mistake. They all worry for him enough as it is. But Thor fears eliminating these natural gestures and habits is like accepting that his brother is really, truly gone, and _Thor is not ready to surrender_. Not yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so short and so Thor & Loki focused. I promise we'll see more of Frigga (and actually see Odin) next time.

For as long as Loki can remember, Thor never has grasped the concept of _boundaries_. Loud and exuberant and with little regard for privacy. Though their parents had given them separate rooms as adolescents—in the vain hope of reducing their squabbling—Thor still always barged into Loki’s chambers as comfortably as if they were his own, and no matter how many times the younger prince admonished him to knock, it always slipped Thor’s mind in moments of excitement or enthusiasm.

In fact, there was a groove in the wall from the numerous times the door had burst open and ricocheted off it. It remained because Loki had given up mending it over and over—certainly not out of any kind of sentiment.

That is why, one afternoon as he is hunched over his desk, Loki is not the least bit surprised to hear his door creaking open.

“Well, I see you have finally given up avoiding me,” he says acerbically without looking up. “And your miraculous transformation on Midgard still has not taught you how to _knock_ before entering.”

But something is wrong. Instead of charging into the room, Thor opens the door cautiously and hovers in the doorway. It is disconcerting to see his impetuous brother hesitate about anything.

“Are you coming in, or not?” Loki prompts.

Thor just sighs and hangs his head; the hand on the doorframe goes slack. His face is creased with exhaustion and despair.

_Perhaps his anger has run its course_ , Loki thinks, hating the childlike hope rising in him. _Perhaps he has come to reconcile_.

Thor still does not meet Loki’s eyes, but he croaks, “I miss you, brother.”

“Miss me?” Loki laughs nervously. “I am right here.”

Thor does not reply. Instead, he shuts the door and turns back the way he came, leaving Loki standing there, trying to unravel what in Odin’s name that was about.

 

* * *

 

In the past six months, Thor has learned that grieving is not a linear process. The pain has its ebbs and flows. For a few days, even a week at a time, he can train with his friends, enjoy the sun on his face and breathe in the fresh air with gratitude. He is able to be strong for Mother. He will begin to believe that, someday, remembering his brother’s face will not hurt.

Then the next day, Thor can barely find the energy to drag himself out of bed.

Similarly, there are days when he finds himself unable to set foot in Loki’s room. It is childish, perhaps, but there is a prickling feeling on the back of his neck, as if he can feel his brother’s presence here still.

He never confesses this to anyone—denial never did any good, and he knows, he understands that death has parted them—but nonetheless, the silence and stillness and feeling of unseen eyes watching him is unbearable enough to make him flee.

Today, however, is not one of those days. He feels no disquiet as he enters.

Thor has tried to stop himself from coming here so often. An empty room can hold no answers, no comfort. Nevertheless, he sits cross-legged on the fur rug near the hearth, as he used to in his youth, glancing periodically at the door as if expecting his brother to walk through any moment and scold him for trespassing.

That is the most painful part of all: the chambers are exactly as Loki left them, obsessively neat except for the open spellbook on the desk and the abandoned quill, a pool of ink dried at the tip. As if he were interrupted in his studies and would return any moment.

Thor has ordered the servants to keep everything in the room this way. In the first few months after Loki’s death, Thor would not even allow the chambermaids to clean in here. He had known it was absurd, but he wanted even the air his brother had once breathed to be preserved, untouched, because it was all they had left of him.

Eventually, Frigga took him aside and admonished him gently, _You know Loki would not want it this way_. And Thor had to concede, for his brother would have been horrified to see the dust collecting.

Now, the chambermaid changes the linens and lights the hearth routinely, but knows that after cleaning the desk, she must return the open book to the same curious angle Loki had turned it to—Thor surmised it was to prevent smearing what he had already written, since his brother had been left-handed.

Thor still does not feel he understood his brother, but he treasures every trivial detail now that he can make sense of.

(It is better than contemplating Loki’s last few decisions. It is easier than wondering how his brother could have chosen to die.)

He often studies the spellbooks, the cramped notes scrawled in the margins, directions occasionally modified or even scribbled out, and realizes Loki experimented with his magic more than he deferred to orthodoxy. Sometimes he just rests his hand against the page, knowing that, not so long ago, his brother’s hand had been there.

 

* * *

 

Today, however, something is different.

One of the tomes from the shelf above the desk is lying on the bed, opened to an alphabet of obscure ancient runes. Thor _knows_ it was not there yesterday.

He sends for the chambermaid that oversees this floor—a plain, reliable young woman named Æsa, who has always followed his instructions without comment.

“I assure you, my prince, I would never leave anything out of place in here,” she responds evenly to his questioning. Thor believes her. There is no guilt or fear in her voice.

“Could one of the younger maids have moved it accidentally?” he prods.

A hint of color creeps up into her face. “Certainly not, my prince,” she says firmly, sounding offended. “I tend to this room myself and I don’t allow _anyone_ else inside, save for your highness and the king and queen.”

This takes Thor somewhat aback. _Father comes here, too? He is so private with his grief that I never know what he is thinking._

But Æsa continues gently, “I understand how important it is to you, Prince Thor. I keep everything just as he left it.”

It is a relief that he does not have to justify his grief around her.

Thor knows that there are few who loved Loki. His tricks and underhanded ways had made many enemies among the nobles; the common people whisper even now that the second son of Odin lacked honor and courage. But Loki also was habitually polite to his inferiors, which had earned him the loyalty of many of the servants he knew personally—they are among the few who seem truly sorry that he is gone.

Thor reflects, with no little shame, on his carelessness toward the palace staff before his banishment, how spoiled and thoughtless were his manners. Yet another item to add to his list of things he should have listened to Loki about.

He dismisses Æsa apologetically and replaces the book himself.

Such a silly thing to disturb him so much, but Thor feels shaken. The way it had been lying open near the pillows, he could vividly imagine Loki lying on his stomach, head resting on his elbows, his legs crossed in the air—just the way he used to read when they were youths. It almost seems like a cruel joke.


	3. Chapter 3

Loki’s true parentage must be common knowledge now in Asgard. That is the only explanation that makes any sense to him—yes, the All-Father must have confirmed the swirling rumors about his disgraced not-son, and that is why even the servants no longer feel obliged to acknowledge Loki. Why else would the chambermaids keep walking past him when he tries to ask them a question? Why else would the guards refuse to return his greetings?

 _Because they will not deign to associate with a Frost Giant_ , Loki concludes. They probably resent him all the more because they feel unclean, having treated him as a prince of Asgard for a thousand years, only to find out that they had been serving a monster in Æsir skin.

He tries not to wonder if this is also why Thor does not speak to him—the thought is too painful, makes him want to retch.

Still, Loki is starting to feel that he would rather endure their rage and disgust than being completely invisible. He needs recognition.

Not from everyone. Mostly from one person.

Loki finds himself at Odin’s study before he even realizes where his legs are taking him. He opens the door without bothering to knock—he has been ignored for long enough.

The All-Father gets up from his seat and closes the door behind Loki, his expression mildly puzzled, before returning to his desk without a word.

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, Odin walking right past him without a glance, his eye seeming to see right through him as if Loki were not there at all. But after all that has happened, after all Loki has done, surely, _surely_ he can at least spare an angry word for his wayward lesser son?

Desperate to make the old man look at him, no matter the reason, Loki announces, “I was the one who let the Frost Giants into Asgard, All-Father. I ruined Thor’s coronation and started this whole mess.”

Odin does not react, not even with a blink or a hesitation. He simply continues rifling through the papers scattered on his desk as if he had heard nothing at all.

“Did you not hear what I said? _I let the Frost Giants into Asgard_.” Loki’s voice is rising. “I wanted to interrupt the ceremony. I wanted you to see how immature he still was, how headstrong and rash, but I knew you would never listen to me, you never do—you’re still not listening!”

He wants to grab Odin by the front of his tunic and shake him, force him to listen, to react, to lecture him, punish him, something, _anything_ —but the longer he stares at the old man, the more his rage subsides into what it really is, a bottomless chasm of yearning, a hunger that can never be satisfied. A cold numbness settling over him, telling him, _You’ll never be worthy, you’ll never be enough_. He cannot even advance any further into the room. He just stands motionless, silently begging the king for even the slightest sign of notice.

“When Thor misbehaves, you discipline him because you want him to learn, you believe he can be better,” Loki says. His voice cracks. “Yet when I do, you cannot even shout at me. I’m just invisible. Does this mean you’ve simply given up? That you don’t think I’m even worth correcting?”

What had made Odin realize that Loki is no longer worth any effort, he wonders? He remembers killing Laufey—wasn’t that enough for the old man?—he remembers freezing the Observatory with the Casket—was he not finishing their family’s good work, destroying a threat to the realm as a true king should?—he remembers rainbow shards scattering as Mjolnir struck the Bifröst…

But this is where his conscious mind always balks, bracing him for truths he does not wish to know.

Disappointment in Father’s (not-Father’s) face. Clusters of stars and swirling nebulae. Suddenly feeling very, very cold, as if the air in his lungs had frozen and he could not inhale…

He blocks out these thoughts, running his hands through his hair and trying to quell his mounting panic. What does it all mean? His next memory is of sitting with Mother in her garden, as if that had all been a terrible, but fading, night terror, to be forgotten now that he had awakened.

Odin, who has been signing documents one after another with no change in expression, sets down his quill and stares into the distance. He looks so _old_ , Loki realizes suddenly. And while he has always thought of his father as a pillar of strength, impervious marble, looking at him now is like watching him in the Odinsleep: frighteningly vulnerable, fragile.

Odin shifts from his stiff, kingly posture until he is hunched over his desk, one hand supporting his head, looking immeasurably weary.

Loki cannot understand it. He mumbles in a broken voice, “Father, why won’t you answer me?”

 

* * *

 

Loki has been dead for seven months, and Frigga has not slept in the same bed as her husband in all that time. She has taken up residence in a suite meant for a lady-in-waiting—only temporarily, she assures Odin.

At first, her excuse had been that they would both sleep better in solitude for a while, that her nightmares would disturb him unnecessarily.

But Odin suspects that there are memories that torment her in this room, because they are everywhere he turns. That high-backed armchair near the hearth is where he sat with Loki in his arms the night he brought him home, trying to warm the shivering infant and coax him to drink some milk. Later, when Loki was a tot, he would wander in here and scramble under the covers with them, because he was afraid of the dark. Little Thor would inevitably follow—insisting, “I’m not scared, I only wanted to be sure _Loki_ wasn’t scared!”—and Odin would growl that they were not going to make a habit of this, that this was the last time he would allow them to stay. Yet even as he spoke, he tucked the covers around his boys, who were already nodding off.

Odin avoids the master suite now, too. Tonight he tries to sleep in his study, trading an expansive feather bed for a leather armchair. The velvet drapes are always kept shut now, because this tower looks out to the Bifröst Observatory and what’s left of the shattered bridge.

He has never been one to run from a conflict, but what cure can there be for grief except time?

It is not only their bedroom that Frigga avoids, Odin admits to himself with a sigh. She pulls away every time he reaches for her. She buries herself in work so that she has little spare time for him. Their last few conversations have been cold and polite because they no longer know what to say to each other. He cannot comfort her when there is so much regret on his shoulders like a physical burden.

Not surprisingly, Odin cannot get comfortable long enough to drift off, so he sits up in defeat. A sliver of moonlight seeps through the crack between the curtains, illuminating the bookshelves, casting eerie shadows on the animal heads mounted on the wall.

He runs a hand along the surface of the table, into which a game board is carved—hnefetafl, a game of strategy meant to simulate a siege. On an impulse, he takes the pieces out from the drawer and sets them up—white pieces in the center, protecting the king, and fleets of black pieces along the edge, waiting to invade.

In the empty stool across from him, he can almost see a little boy fidgeting anxiously, green eyes round and earnest, trying to predict his next move. Odin had hoped to teach the boys war tactics, but Loki was the only one with patience for intellectual games.

_"Father, do you play hnefetafl with Thor too?”_

_"No, Loki, this is a game just for you and I.”_

Odin had chuckled fondly at the way Loki’s eyes had lit up with pleasure at that. Even as a small boy, he had been so possessive of his father’s attention. Odin was glad too, to have something of their own, a common language, a middle ground where they could meet despite being such different people.

Through it, Odin could also assess the development of Loki’s tactical skills. His shrewdness would make him an invaluable advisor to Thor someday, but his inability to tolerate defeat worried Odin some. Loki would become sullen at the slightest setback, and it was difficult to coax him to try again.

Odin has always thought of his sons as representing the distinction between arrogance and pride. Thor, who truly thinks highly of his own abilities, is able to brush off criticism and obstacles and get back on his feet again. Loki, on the other hand, internalizing his every failure, is— _was_ —fragile under his brittle mask. And Odin has never quite known how to deal with that, for such determined insecurity is foreign to him.

_I thought that problem could fix itself, if Loki simply worked to accomplish something he could be proud of. I never thought…_

This game was a tradition that Odin had cherished all the more when Loki grew too old to sit on his knee and listen in wonder to his stories—when his innocence began to fade away, to be replaced by suspicion and self-doubt and furtiveness—when Loki began to hide in dark corners and wear so many masks that Odin felt he no longer truly knew his youngest son’s mind. But they still had their games of hnefetafl. Even if it only brought them close again temporarily, even if Odin had less time for it as the years passed, those moments transported the king and his son back to a simpler time.

Now the All-Father feels a chill in the room as he gazes at an empty stool. The pieces are cool and heavy in his hand.

“When did we stop playing, my son?” he wonders.


End file.
